T.J. Petracca, Morgan Freed and Barbara Szabo had no grand plans when they put on their first Taking Back Tuesday Emo Night LA event—they just wanted an excuse to drink and sing along to nostalgic with their friends. “We thought 40 people were going to come,” Freed admits as we sit and chat in the Silver Lake neighborhood of Los Angeles, Calif.

To their surprise, a line wrapped around the block of Echo Park’s The Short Stop without the event ever being promoted, and month two just got bigger. “We ordered 20 pizzas and walked down the line and passed them out,” Petracca says with a laugh. “We were like, ‘We’re sorry, we can’t get you in!’”

The next month, the trio moved Taking Back Tuesday to the larger Echoplex and Blink-182’s Mark Hoppus guest DJed. From there, the events only continued to grow, but T.J., Morgan and Babs’ mission stays the same: To host a party without pretension and create an atmosphere where Angelenos can let their hair down and bond over a shared love of music. 

T.J. and Morgan recently sat down with Myspace to discuss Taking Back Tuesday’s sudden success, befriending Mark Hoppus and what Emo Night LA means to them. 

What was your reaction when Taking Back Tuesday blew up? 

TP: Well, we got the Echoplex locked down...it all happened really weirdly. We knew we got the Echoplex but didn’t want to announce it right away, and then we were just like “Fuck it, let’s announce it,” and that same day Mark Hoppus confirmed. That’s when we lost our shit [laughs].

MF: We had to learn how to make everybody super happy and comfortable with what we were doing, and we don’t know how to throw an event, so we just did what we think is fun and funny. We made funny-ass drink names, made the flyers the way we wanted to do it. We did everything that we wanted to do to make it as fun as we thought it could be, as opposed to as profitable or popular as we could.

Courtesy of Taking Back Tuesday

Well it’s crazy because it still gets to capacity really quickly at Echoplex. 

MF: Yeah, it gets to capacity in like 10-minutes. 

TP: Which means we’re getting better at DJing.

MF: Yeah, we’re getting better at fading in and out of songs, less airhorn.

Courtesy of Taking Back Tuesday

But you can never have too much airhorn. 

MF: I would literally go to a show that was just airhorn.

TP: Can we use airhorn in this interview? [uses airhorn app on phone]

Mark Hoppus has guest DJed both nights you’ve had at the Echoplex so far, is he just all about Emo Night?

TP: The second time he came back, he just DMed us on Twitter and was like, “Hey, can I come back?”

MF: And we were like, “You can do whatever you want.” Dude’s my fuckin’ hero...the second time we did it at the Echoplex, we didn’t announce any guest DJs and it was still crazy. 

TP: We want people to keep coming for the event and to enjoy each other and the music, and it’s not like you’re going to a show. You’re going for Taking Back Tuesday, and whatever happens, happens. And that’s something we want to continue.

Are you trying to brand this? 

TP: It was never our intention to make this a brand. All of a sudden, it was like, "Well...I guess we have to get insurance and write people checks and pay our photographers, so I guess we have to start a company now." 

MF: We’re trying to do things the right way...and that’s the really important thing to take out of this. We never set out to make money, make a brand. As fun and as cool as it is, you have to make the next appropriate step to make sure you can continue to keep doing this for the people who care about it. And I think that’s where things get grey or blurry, because people are like, “Wait, they make T-shirts? They probably fuckin’ pocket all that cash.” And it’s like, “Dude, sure. I have like $700 to my name—I’m so rich.” [Laughs] So I think that’s the misconception. 

Courtesy of Taking Back Tuesday

I know you can’t divulge too much about future plans, but ideally where would you like to see this a year from now? 

TP: As long as we’re still having fun with it, then I’m still down to do it. I don’t care if it has to move back to the Short Stop because what it originally was was an excuse for our friends to come out and drink with us. 

MF: We could move it to TJ’s house. If in a year, that’s where it has to be, that’s where it’s going to be. 

TP: And if it’s Coachella-sized, I don’t care. That would be great too, as long as it’s still fun... What we really want is to just get people out of the LA mentality. So many people go to shows and just stand their with their arms folded and act like they’re too cool to be there, and it’s not like that at our party.